Immigration History Research Center
The Immigration History Research Center promotes interdisciplinary research on international migration, develops archives documenting immigrant and refugee life, especially in the U.S., and makes specialized scholarship accessible to students, teachers, and the public.
Perspectives
Research Universities, Research Centers and Undergraduate Education
Donna R. Gabaccia, Director, Immigration History Research Center
The IHRC earned a notice in the July 25 New York Times "EducationTimes" Supplement: Normally, that's cause for celebration here in Andersen Library.
Unfortunately, this time the IHRC (along with other research centers at the University of Minnesota) was noted as part of a supposedly disturbing trend--the proliferation of educational administrative costs--that (according to authors Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus) deflects resources from education.
(Continue Reading)July 28th, 2010
Collections
IHRC has created a vast archive of newspapers, oral histories, and personal papers, along with the organizational records of immigrants and refugees and the agencies created to serve them. Holdings are particularly rich on the labor migrants who came to the U.S. between 1880 and 1930s, on the displaced persons who arrived in the U.S. after World War II, and on the refugees resettled in the United States after 1975. Holdings include archives, books, periodicals and digital sources.
Scholar Events
IHRC seminars, lectures and workshops bring a highly specialized and multi-disciplinary group of University of Minnesota researchers into dialogue with their national and international peers, with university and high school students and their teachers, with journalists, photographers and filmmakers, and with communities of immigrants and ethnic Americans. The IHRC collaborates with the Institute for Global Studies to offer a special series of events called Global REM (Race, Ethnicity, and Migration). Videotapes of the seminars are available on the Global REM Website.
Community
The IHRC engages with many communities in the Twin Cities, and in Minnesota and beyond. It is especially qualified to bring into dialogue the many scholar-specialists from the University of Minnesota with high school students and their teachers, with print and non-print media workers, and with individuals from local immigrant and ethnic communities. The IHRC also works with a community support group, the Friends of the IHRC, to offer special lectures and events. These provide an opportunity for conversation and socializing as well as a way to highlight the place of the IHRC collections in preserving the heritage and promoting the study of immigrant history.
In the News
Research Universities, Research Centers and Undergraduate Education
Donna R. Gabaccia, Director, Immigration History Research Center
The IHRC earned a notice in the July 25 New York Times "EducationTimes" Supplement: Normally, that's cause for celebration here in Andersen Library.
Unfortunately, this time the IHRC (along with other research centers at the University of Minnesota) was noted as part of a supposedly disturbing trend--the proliferation of educational administrative costs--that (according to authors Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus) deflects resources from education.
(Continue Reading)July 28th, 2010
Collection Developments
Digitizing Immigrant Letters Pilot Project
Please visit the web pages featuring a set of newly digitized, transcribed and translated letters written by immigrants or their loved ones. All letters included in this pilot project for an intended large research initiative by the IHRC can be found in the Center's archival collections.
(Continue Reading)May 14th, 2010
Explore the Digitizing Immigrant Letters Pilot Project
Notices
Angles of Incidence (2006) video installation in Minneapolis MN
The Finnish/British duo of Minna Rainio and Mark Roberts present the three-channel installation, Angles of Incidence (2006) at the Franklin Art Works in Minneapolis MN. The actual voices of Somali and Afghan refugees are juxtaposed with images of the empty rooms through which they must pass on their journey to becoming Finnish citizens.
(Continue Reading)September 2nd, 2010Minnesota Historical and Cultural Heritage Grant awarded to IHRC
The Minnesota Historical Society has awarded a Minnesota Historical and Cultural Heritage Grant to the Immigration History Research Center (IHRC) at the University of Minnesota. The project titled Minnesota's Immigrant Life Writings will identify unpublished Minnesota collections with an emphasis on letters, diaries, memoirs and oral histories in languages other than English and create an online directory that will help to make them more accessible to scholarly and community researchers.
(Continue Reading)September 1st, 2010Transcripts & closed captions available for Global Race, Ethnicity and Migration seminars
Videos with closed captions from the Global Race, Ethnicity and Migration graduate seminars presented by leading scholars fall 2007 through spring 2009 at the University of Minnesota are available online.
(Continue Reading)August 30th, 2010
